Category: Creativity

Creative people can be a little weird. Great artists are often outsiders: they don’t behave like us, they don’t look like us and they don’t think like us.

True creativity is not the preserve of people who think the same as everyone else. Frequently (but not always) this is the result of lots of weird things happening to them:

“…highly creative individuals often experience a disproportionate number of unusual and unexpected events, such as early parental loss (Martindale, 1972) or having an immigrant status (Goertzel, Goertzel, & Goertzel, 1978). Furthermore, living abroad is linked to creativity in the general population (Leung, Maddux, Galinsky, & Chiu, 2008).” (Ritter et al., 2012)

So perhaps:

“…diversifying experiences help people break their cognitive patterns and thus lead them to think more flexibly and creatively.” (Ritter et al., 2012)

Now there’s experimental support for this idea. In two experiments Ritter et al. found that:

“…comparisons with various control groups showed that a diversifying experience—defined as the active (but not vicarious) involvement in an unusual event—increased cognitive flexibility more than active (or vicarious) involvement in normal experiences.”

So go out this weekend and do something weird: it’ll make you a more creative person (probably!). As former Beatle Paul McCartney said:

“I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird”

Just make sure you take an active part in the weirdness and you don’t let the weirdness go too far.

We’ve all met people who are weird-bad rather than weird-good. A creative person may be intentionally weird, but only at times when weird is good.

Have fun!

Image credit: Norma Desmond

There are lots of metaphors floating around in creativity. We talk about ‘thinking outside the box’, ‘putting two and two together’ and ‘seeing both sides of the problem’.

But are these only metaphors or can we boost our creativity by taking them literally? We know our minds interact in all sorts of interesting ways with our bodies, so what if we enacted these metaphors physically?

That’s the question Leung et al. (2012) examine in a new study published in the journal Psychological Science. This brings together two of my favourite topics here on PsyBlog: creativity and embodied cognition. Across five studies they tested ways of making people more creative by simply changing postures.

1. On one hand…on the other hand

Creative ideas are often arrived at by bringing together two apparently unrelated thoughts. When we can think about a problem in terms of two different sides, we are more likely to find a way to integrate them. This is encapsulated by the phrase “On the one hand…on the other hand…”

So, what if while trying to solve a problem you physically hold up one hand followed by the other? Might this send a signal to the unconscious to encourage it to consider the problem from more than one angle?

Leung et al. had participants doing this and found that those who gestured with both hands came up with more novel ideas than those who gestured with just one hand.

2. Literally sit outside a box

‘Thinking outside the box’ is an awfully overused cliché. Nevertheless it does capture the idea that in creativity you have to try and explore new areas.

In their research Leung et al. had participants literally either sitting in boxes or sitting next to boxes while doing creativity tests. Magically just this simple manipulation worked. People quite literally sitting outside the box came up with more ideas than those sitting in the box.

3. Wander around, but not in a square

If you don’t have a box handy, you might like to try just wandering around randomly, but whatever happens don’t walk in a square.

Leung et al. found that people came up with more ideas when they wandered around randomly than when they walked in a square or than when they didn’t walk at all.

4. Put two and two together

Not all creative thinking is about plucking amazing ideas out of the ether.

Sometimes we need to do the grunt work of logically fitting together ideas or objects we’ve already got in front of us. We’ve got to put two and two together and make sure the answer isn’t 17, metaphorically speaking.

This is what psychologists call ‘convergent thinking’ and it’s where we bring our logic, knowledge and skills to bear on a problem.

A fourth study tested the idea that sorting piles of cards from two stacks into one would encourage convergent thinking.

It did. Participants who sorted the cards from two piles into one did better on a test of convergent thinking than those who just fiddled around with the cards in one pile.

5. Imagine it

Too lazy to get a box or wander around randomly? Then this last study is for you. Here participants either watched a Second Life avatar wandering freely or walking in a square.

According to the results this also worked as those watching the freely wandering avatar came up with more unconventional ideas for gifts than those watching the square-walking avatar.

This one is cool because it shows that the postures aren’t as important as the state of mind that they encourage. The mere suggestion that someone might adopt these postures was enough to cue a more creative state of mind.

And lie down

This new research joins previous studies which have suggested that simple postures can affect creativity.

In one study people lying down were better at solving anagrams (Lipnicki & Byrne, 2005); in another their concentration was boosted by wearing a white coat. And another used mind-body dissonance—e.g. thinking an unhappy thought while smiling—to boost creativity (How To Promote Visionary Thinking).

All of these studies show how the position of our bodies feeds back into the state of our minds. And it also shows how deeply metaphors are planted in our consciousness.

Image credit: Holger Eileby

Do you feel at your most creative early or late in the day? Now psychological research is examining whether there’s a best time of day for creativity, depending on the type of creativity and your natural rhythms.

To investigate Wieth and Zacks (2012) had participants take two different types of creativity test. One measured their insight ability: this is the kind of problem which requires a leap into the unknown. Like when you suddenly realise that a silk scarf would make a great sandwich parachute (hey, maybe you want to drop it undamaged from the fiftieth floor).

The second measured their ability to solve analytic problems: these are the type of problems that require you to work steadily towards the answer, like doing your taxes.

Both of these types of thinking are important in creativity, although at different points in the process.

What Wieth and Zacks found was that strong morning-types were better at solving the more mysterious insight problems in the evening, when they apparently weren’t at their best.

Exactly the same pattern, but in reverse, was seen for people who felt their brightest in the evening: they performed better on the insight task when they were unfocused in the morning.

What’s going on?

This research can’t tell us specifically, but it’s probably because being a bit sleepy and vague broadens the mind’s focus.

With more options to play with, it’s more likely you’ll make connections between apparently unconnected ideas. On the other hand being focused narrows down your attention, forcing you into a more analytical mindset.

Also note that some people are neither larks nor owls: they have no particular preference for morning or evening. Still, you can identify when you feel more groggy and try to get some insightful thinking done then.

Beware, though: all sorts of things that seem like a good idea when you’re sleepy are revealed as complete madness in the cold, hard light of day (I’m talking about you, sandwich parachute!). That’s what analytic creativity is for: to weed out the rubbish.

Image credit: Yau Hoong Tang

Many organisations claim they want to foster creativity—and so they should—but unintentionally, through their working practices, creativity is killed stone dead.

That’s what Teresa Amabile, now Director of the Harvard Business School, found when looking back over decades of her research in organisations (Amabile, 1998). As part of one research program she examined seven companies in three different industries, having team members report back daily on their work.

After two years she found marked differences in how organisations dealt with creativity. Whether or not they intended to, some of the organisations seemed to know the perfect ways to kill creativity, while others set up excellent environments for their employees to be creative.

Since so many organisations seem to be aiming to kill creativity, here are the six main methods:

1. Role mismatch

One of the easiest ways of killing creativity is by giving a job to the wrong person. It could be an assignment or the whole role. Employees need to feel their abilities are stretched, but that the assignment is within their grasp.

Within many organisation the usual system is to give the most urgent work to the person who appears most eligible (i.e. is most senior/most junior/has the least work/is the next cab off the rank etc.). Managers typically fail to really look at the requirements of the job/assignment and then at the skills of the employee. Mismatches are a recipe for an unsatisfactory and creativity-free result.

2. Restrict freedom

Yes, people need specific goals set for them, but they also need freedom in how to achieve these goals. If you want to kill creativity, then simply restrict employee’s freedom in how they reach their goals. Two common methods are by changing the goals too frequently or by implicitly communicating to your staff that new methods are not welcome. Employees will soon get the message and stop trying.

3. Ration resources

Creativity requires time and money; to kill it off restrict both. You can do it by setting impossibly short deadlines or by restricting resources to a minimum.

Managers tend to be obsessed with physical spaces, thinking that it’s bean bags, fussball tables or funky furniture that engenders creativity. Far more important, though, is mental space. People need enough time and resources to come up with good ideas. Put people under hideous time and resource pressure, though, and you’ll soon squeeze out all their creativity.

4. Reduce group diversity

Groups in which people are very similar tend to get along well. They don’t disagree, they don’t cause any trouble and they are frequently low in creativity. If you want to make sure that creativity is kept to a minimum then reduce the diversity in groups.

In contrast when teams are made up of people with different skills, abilities and viewpoints, their different approaches tend to combine to produce creative solutions. They may take longer and they may argue more but diverse groups breed creativity—so avoid them.

5. No encouragement

It’s easier to be critical than it is to be constructive. If you want to stifle creativity then meet new ideas with endless evaluation and criticism. Also, one of the problems with new ideas is that often they don’t pan out. So to discourage further creativity, make sure you really punish people whose audacious ideas don’t work.

Once people know they’re going to be endlessly interrogated about their new ideas—and punished if they don’t work out—they’ll soon stop producing them.

6. No support

Infighting. Politicking. Gossip. All can easily kill creativity. If the organisation is turned against itself, it’s unlikely to produce truly creative work. Try to avoid letting information flow freely and discourage collaboration, because both are likely to boost creativity.

Without support, attempts to be creative will quickly wither and die and employees will become demotivated and cynical.

Keep it subtle

Remember that all these methods for killing creativity are best done with subtlety. You should say you provide support, freedom, resources and so on, but only do it half-heartedly. This will give you the appearance of a creative organisation but you won’t produce the truly creative solutions which mark out the best.

Image credit: Wooly Matt

Do you like surprises? If you do, it may surprise you to learn that a lot of other people don’t.

Our natural ability (or lack thereof) to deal with surprising situations and the uncertainty they generate may have an important role to play in our creativity.

Psychologists call our natural way of dealing with uncertainty ‘personal need for structure’. Some people have a greater desire to know what is coming next, what to expect; whereas other people don’t mind being surprised.

Take a couple of social situations as examples. Imagine you go to a restaurant with your partner, where you are met by the maitre d’ and sat down, brought your menus, given the wine list and so on.

Throughout the evening the social structure of the situation is just like every other time you’ve visited a restaurant. The rituals of ordering food and drink; the pretending to ignore other diners, but secretly checking them out; then, when the bill arrives, briefly considering doing a runner before laying down the plastic.

The rituals are comforting.

But let’s imagine we mess with this situation. Say you walk into the restaurant and there’s no maitre d’, you sit down wherever you can fit in. Then you are brought random foods and drinks that you didn’t choose and the people sitting next to you don’t ignore you, but start up conversations like you were old friends. Not only that but the waiters also sits down to eat their meals with you.

And it turns out the whole things is free, sort of: apparently everyone is coming around to your place next Saturday and expects the same treatment.

What kind of a weird restaurant has this system? Well, it’s just the rules of a dinner party transported to a restaurant, but because the rules are out of place they are surprising.

The point is that those with a high personal need for structure would find the dinner-party-style restaurant highly uncomfortable. You don’t know what to expect because the rules have all been changed and no one told you. Other people, though, don’t mind these sorts of things so much: they are more likely to take it in their stride.

The good news for those who like surprises is that psychologists have found that they are generally more creative. Something about this ability to roll with the uncertainty inherent in some situations seems to make people’s minds more open to new possibilities. It seems uncertainty breeds creativity.

A recent study, though, has added an important nuance and gives creative hope to those of us who don’t like surprises.

In their study Rietzschel et al. (2010) tested both people’s need for structure and their fear of being wrong. They thought that both would have an effect on creative performance. Participants were given a series of tests of creativity which included being asked to draw an alien. Those aliens which looked least like a mammal were judged most creative.

The researchers found that when participants weren’t afraid of being wrong then their need for structure didn’t stop them being creative. The problems came when people’s anxieties destroyed their ability to be creative.

Those of us who need structure can still be highly creative as long as we don’t allow our fears to get the better of us. The key is to find ways to reduce the fear of being wrong and give ourselves time to discover all the possibilities our minds have to offer.

Image credit: Patrick Hoesly

The idea of creativity is wonderful: that a spark of inspiration can eventually bring something new and useful into the world, perhaps even something beautiful. Something, as it were, from nothing.

That spark may only be the start of a journey towards the finished article or idea, but it is still a wonderful moment. Without the initial spark there will be no journey. It’s no exaggeration to say that our ability to be creative sits at the heart of our achievements as a species.

Do incentives work?

So, what methods do people naturally use to encourage creativity? In the creative industries the usual method is money, or some other related incentive. So, can incentives encourage people to be creative?

According to the research, they can, but crucially these incentives need to emphasise that creativity is the goal (Eisenberger & Shanock, 2003). Studies find that if people are given an incentive for just completing a task, it doesn’t increase their creativity (Amabile et al., 1986). In fact, incentives linked to task completion (rather than creativity) can reduce creativity.

Another way of encouraging creativity is simply to be reminded that creativity is a goal. It seems too simple to be true, but research has found that just telling people to ‘be creative’ increases their creativity (e.g. Chen et al., 2005).

The theory is that this works because people often don’t realise they’re supposed to be looking for creative solutions. This is just as true in the real world as it is in psychology experiments. We get so wrapped up in deadlines, clients, costs and all the rest that it’s easy to forget to search for creative solutions.

People need to be told that creativity is a goal. Unlike children, adults need to be reminded about the importance of creativity. Perhaps it’s because so much of everyday life encourages conformity and repeating the same things you did before. Doing something different needs a special effort.

Rational versus intuitive thinking

However telling someone to ‘be creative’ is a bit like telling them to ‘be more clever’ or ‘be more observant’. We want to shout: “Yes, but how?!”

Another insight comes from a new study on stimulating creativity. This suggests one solution may lie in using an unusual thinking style—unusual, that is, to you (Dane et al., 2011). Let me explain…

When trying to solve problems that need creative solutions, broadly people have been found to approach them in one of two ways:

1. Rationally: by using systematic patterns of thought. This involves relying on specific things you’ve learnt in the past, thinking concretely and ignoring gut instincts.
2. Intuitively: by setting the mind free to explore associations. This involves working completely on first impressions and whatever comes to mind while ignoring what you’ve learnt in the past.

The researchers wondered if people’s creativity could be increased by encouraging them to use the pattern of thinking that was most unusual to them. So, those people who naturally preferred to approach creative problems rationally, were asked to think intuitively. And the intuitive group was asked to think rationally for a change.

Participants were given a real-world problem to solve: helping a local business expand. The results were evaluated by managers from the company involved. When they looked at the results, the manipulation had worked: people were more creative when they used the thinking style that was most unusual for them.

One of the reasons this may work is that consciously adopting a different strategy stops your mind going down the same well-travelled paths. We all have habitual ways of approaching problems and while habits are sometimes useful, they can also produce the same results over and over again.

A limitation of this study is that it only looked at the generation of new ideas. This tends to occur mostly at the start of the creative process. So once ideas have been generated and a more analytical mindset is required, these techniques may not work so well.

Image credit: gfpeck